Page 38 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

Chapter Twenty-One

Colt

We tore the apartment up last night.

Part of my apology tour, which I don’t think is going to be over anytime soon.

Not because she’s holding anything against me. No. She told me she loved me last night more times than I can count, and I made sure to say it two times to her every one, because I owe her.

“What exactly do you want to do?” I ask while lying in her bed, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling. “We can long distance. If that makes you more comfortable. I know you’re doing school, and I’m not doing much of anything but lying around, then healing myself.”

She props herself up on her elbow and looks at me. “Is that what you want to do?”

I turn toward her. “Hell no. I want to move in with you. Or to have you move in with me. But I’m the one who messed up.”

“You’re not on probation,” she says, leaning in and kissing me on the nose. Which is far too sweet given the circumstances. She sits up.

“I’m going to need you to forgive yourself, because your self-loathing is actually the problem. You made a mistake. That’s all. It’s not a mistake that comes from nothing.”

I sit with that for a moment. “I’m just really sorry that I hurt you.”

“I know. Do you think your dad has ever been sorry about hurting anyone? Do you think he’s ever worried so much about being a good person?”

“No,” I say, a little bit dumbfounded by that realization. But of course it’s true. Of course, he’s never worried about that.

“Your love is good enough.” I duck my head, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion.

I let out a hard breath, and look at her.

I let her see it. I’ve gone through all this and not shed a single tear, but she makes me want to weep like a baby.

Because what she said is true. She’s loved me forever.

Even when she was kind of a brat to me, she loved me.

What a difficult position she was in, all these years.

Feeling like it was impossible. She’s brave enough to have taken a chance on us years ago, but the connection…

We still have to deal with our respective parents. With the way this is going to affect the family. But that feels extremely secondary to us knowing we’ve made a real commitment to each other.

“I would like to live here,” she says finally. “Just because I’m not sure how I feel about us cohabitating in a house your mom owns.”

“We’ve had more sex in houses owned by my mom than can be readily catalogued.”

She laughs. “I know. But for our life. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I’ve traveled all over the place. I can do apartment living for a little bit.”

She wraps her arms around mine. “You’re still a cowboy, you know.”

Something about that goes a long way to healing a sore spot in my chest. “I want to go talk to your dad.”

I feel some real dread about that.

Because Jim is my father figure. Hell, he’s just my dad.

In ways my own certainly never has been.

Robert Campbell doesn’t care about me. He didn’t send me anything when I got injured – the cascade of cards and texts that I received in the hospital didn’t have a single thing to do with him.

My hero in so many ways. A real man. Who bakes pies for his family, and loves his kids.

Who went through something impossible, a grief that must’ve split him open.

A grief I feel closer to now, now that I know what it’s like to love somebody. Like this.

I don’t want to do anything to compromise my relationship with him, and yet, Allison is the one thing that’s worth it.

“I should probably talk to your mom.”

“I can handle all that.”

She shakes her head. “Divide and conquer. I think that seems fair.”

“I assume Gentry has already talked to you,” I say.

She wrinkles her nose. “No.”

“Well. He knows. “He’s a real friend. A good friend. I didn’t appreciate what he was offering to me because it was something that disrupted my narrative. I appreciate it now, though. I really do.

I make breakfast, then we decide to make the trip to Golden Valley.

It’s a mirror, in many ways of that time she drove me home from the hospital.

Except this time I’m healed. My body might not be totally healed, but my soul is.

That matters a hell of a lot more. I never thought I’d be in that position, where what was inside me mattered more.

Because all I wanted was to be able to win that championship.

To prove myself. I don’t have to do that anymore.

But as we pull up to the house, I do feel some fear. Those old feelings of insufficiency wash through me. Because patterns are hard to break.

As I get out of the driver’s seat, Jim comes walking up from the direction of the barn. “What are you two doing here?”

“I want to talk to you,” I say.

Allison doesn’t touch me, but she does smile at me. “I’m going to go talk to Cindy,” she says.

She walks away from the truck, up the stairs toward the house. I take a deep breath, and turn toward Jim. “I don’t really know how to say this. So… I just have to.” I close my eyes. “I love Allison.”

I’m waiting for something. For an ax to fall, for a punch to get thrown.

But he’s just standing there, looking at me, and suddenly it seems absurd that I would think my gentle, lovely stepfather would suddenly throw a punch when he’s never done any such thing.

I realize how much of this comes from inside me.

How much of it never had anything to do with him.

All my insecurities, for all my life. They’re just about me.

I projected that mirror onto other people.

“Do you want to clarify, because there are a few ways I could take that.”

I nod. “Yeah, I… I want to marry her. And I get that that’s weird. Or maybe it feels like it’s coming from nowhere. Or like it’s not right, and I struggled with that a lot. We did.”

Jim nods and lets out a long sigh. “Colt, you’re not as subtle as you think you are.

” He closes the distance between us and claps me on the shoulder.

“It’s been months of the two of you circling each other, being together, being distant, and when we moved Allison into her apartment and you weren’t there, it was clear something had happened. ”

“You never treated me any differently.”

“Neither of you were ready to talk about it. Cindy and I have talked about it. A lot. And we’ve been worried, but you can’t drag things out of your kids when they’re not ready to tell you.”

God, I really am so lucky. There have been some unlucky things.

But not this. My family… I’m so lucky there.

“You’re right. It’s complicated,” Jim said.

“But in some ways, it doesn’t surprise me.

I know she had a crush on you when she was a kid.

Again, not as subtle as she probably would’ve liked.

I know she wasn’t happy when Cindy and I got married.

I thought it was about her mom, but I think it was a lot about you.

You two have your own relationship. Just like Cindy and I have our own relationship.

But you and I have our own relationship, Colt.

And you will always be a son to me, no matter what.

So when things weren’t good with the two of you, you were still my son. ”

It’s that unconditional love. That love I still never expect. That love, I don’t know how to accept. But I’m trying. I’m learning. Because the inability to accept love is almost as bad as the inability to give it.

“Thanks,” I say. “I needed that. More than you can imagine. I… I really do love her. And I’m going to take care of her. And I’m not going to ask her to marry me right away, because I know she’s doing school, and I want her to feel like I’ve given all this thought, but…”

“Tell her you want to marry her,” Jim says. “One thing I can tell you for sure is that honesty is always the best thing. And also, don’t let time get away from you.”

He’s speaking with authority, as a man who has deeply loved twice.

Who understands what a gift it is. And I realize that what a gift that is to me.

Because if anybody was going to be accepting, and not judge, it’s someone who understands the weight and value of these feelings.

“I have something for you. Why don’t you come inside? ”

“What?”

“I have her mom’s ring. I’ve saved it. I want you to have it. So that you can give it to her.”

I really am an emotional wreck today. But if something was going to wreck me, I think it’s right that it’s this. “I’d love that.”

He puts his hand on my back, and we walk up the stairs into the house.

Allison and my mom are in the kitchen, and they walk through to us when we come in. My mom has tears in her eyes, and she hugs me. Tight. “I love you. I’m glad you’re happy.”

We stay for most of the afternoon, and the ring is burning a hole in my pocket. I was going to wait. But I don’t want to wait. Because I almost died. And it’s not missing the championship that would’ve been a tragedy. It’s not missing guts and glory or anything else. It would be missing this.

And so instead of driving back to the apartment, I start to head up toward Medicine Lake.

“What are we doing?”

“Something really important,” I say.

I parked the truck, and hold her hand as we walked to that same patch of grass where we made love and things changed between us.

They really changed. This place knows us.

It knows who we are and how deeply we feel for each other.

And it feels right to get down on one knee right there in the grass.

Here’s where I told her that if she got pregnant I’d take care of her.

It was the deepest offer I could make at the time. This is better.

“Allison, will you marry me?”

She looks stunned. “Colt, we…”

“We’ve already been together for a lifetime, in one form or another. I’m ready to step into the next lifetime. We can wait and get married after you're done with school. Or we can get married tomorrow. Whatever you want, but –”

She doesn’t wait for me to finish. She wraps her arms around my neck and comes down to the ground with me, kissing me hard. I pull the ring out of my pocket and show her. “Your dad gave it to me.”

Tears are streaming down her face. And she puts the ring on her finger, looking down at it. “Oh, I remember this. I remember this ring on my mom’s hand.”

“They’ve all given us their blessing.”

She nods. “You know, I thought it was a mistake. When our parents first got married. Because I thought that I was supposed to be with you, and this was going to keep us away from each other. It wasn’t a mistake.

But sometimes life is tricky, and difficult things happen.

Like me losing my mom. But there’s beauty in it, and there’s still a path to joy.

And I’d like to think that in some way, all these shattered pieces worked together to bring us this moment, the whole diamond. ”

“I think so,” I say. Because it was the same with me. I had to be broken, really broken, before I could be put back together. And now here I am, no crowd, no stage. And I’ve never been happier.